The half hour sufficed, a fire was lit at the entrance of the cave on the ledge outside, and the missionary, lying down, was soon buried in sleep.
The day had been very hot, and what with the excitement, fatigue, and want of nourishment, the two were tired out. Still Hughes determined to watch, as heaping wood on the fire, he placed his rifle on his knees, and leaned back in a sitting posture against the rock. Night came on; the cries of the animals began to be heard, and the jackals soon found out the carcass of the rhinoceros. The stars were very brilliant, and the soldier sat thinking of the past, and peopling in imagination those fantastic masses of fallen ruin which had once at that hour rang with bustle and merriment. The wind came in hot puffs, making the date and palmyra leaves rustle as they waved to and fro; the noise of the stream breaking over the fallen masonry was very monotonous, and soon the sentry found himself dozing. He rose, heaped fresh wood on the fire, looked out from the ledge into the night, listened to the cracking of the branches, which told him that elephants were not far off, and then again sat down.
The moon rose, silvering with its beams the finely-cut leaves of the tall palmyra and the broken ruins, shining on the human figure at the entrance of the cave, and gleaming on the bright barrel and lock of the English rifle; but the soldier slept on his post; the jackals fought over the carrion, the fire burned lower and lower, and finally went out. Day was dawning, when a loud shout close to the mouth of the cavern woke both the soldier and the missionary, but only to find themselves surrounded by a band of the Amatonga warriors fully armed, while the savage eyes and filed teeth of their chief Umhleswa, seemed to give a more vindictive expression than ever to his repulsive face.
Umhleswa’s Bargain.
The following day the whole kraal was in commotion, Umhleswa summoning the braves of the tribe around him in council, the white men not being deprived of their arms, but very closely watched. The assembly was a noisy one. On the one hand the native superstitions invested the ruins with a sacred character, and the Amatonga chief had been placed where he was to prevent any access to them by Europeans. There could not be a doubt that the whole tribe had been guilty of negligence, their chief included, and that they were responsible to the king of Manica for what had happened. On the other, Masheesh, as the representative of his chief, loudly proclaimed the white men to be under Mozelkatse’s protection, and demanded their safety, threatening a dire revenge if anything happened to them. The anger of so powerful and fierce a chief as Mozelkatse was to be dreaded. Umhleswa, too, was an ambitious man, and was not contented with his position as chief of a petty tribe. He coveted firearms, and these he could only obtain from the whites. Without those arms he could do nothing, and the way to procure them was certainly not by putting to death the first white men who came among them. Umhleswa was cruel, vindictive, and unscrupulous, and he had, without hesitation, told the white men a deliberate untruth to hinder their seeking for the sacred ruins. His chance wound and subsequent insensibility upset his calculations; still he was very much averse to shedding their blood.
There was, however, a warrior of the tribe second only to himself in power—a man of another stamp, and famed for personal courage and deeds of daring. Between Sgalam and Umhleswa there had always been rivalry, and, on this occasion, the Amatonga brave took an entirely different view of the whole matter, openly blaming Umhleswa’s conduct, and demanding the death of the white men as the only means of securing the safety of the tribe.
The result was long doubtful, and what between the chief’s arguments and Masheesh’s threats, the balance seemed in favour of clemency. The council was noisy, and divided in opinion. Umhleswa had just been showing in eloquent words the injustice of dooming to death men who had acted from ignorance, pointing out that they could not have known the sacred nature of the place they had invaded; and he seemed to be carrying with him the feelings of the tribe as they all squatted round in the inclosure on the hill-top, when Sgalam, roused to a last effort, strode straight up to Luji, who was listening open-mouthed, and laying his hand on the man’s shoulder, “Here is one of their head-men,” he said, with violence; “ask him if the white chiefs were not warned, ay, even in Mozelkatse’s camp. Should they go free, Sgalam himself will denounce the folly in the council inclosure of Manica.”
The baboon, seeing a hand laid on Luji, and doubtless thinking harm was meant him, at once flew at the orator, making his teeth meet in the man’s arm, and chattering wildly.